> Dear ASAers,>> Here is another letter for your input. Thanks for any help you can give Jane.>> Don (Munro)>> >From: Jane Taylor <JaneTaylor@covenantchristian.org>> >To: asa@newl.com> >Subject: Questions> >Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 08:43:03 -0500>> >My name is Jane Taylor and I teach physics at Covenant Christian High> >School in Indianapolis, Ind. We are currently discussing the various> >schools of thought among Christians about the origin of the universe.> >Young earth proponents seem to focus on the Genesis account, the fossil> >record, etc., and old earth proponents seem to focus more on recent> >discoveries in astrophysics. What does an old earth scientist believe> >about death of animals and extinction prior to the fall?> >> >>> -----------------------------------------------> Donald W. Munro, Ph.D.> Executive Director, ASA> P. O. Box 668> Ipswich, MA 01938> (978) 356-5656> asa@newl.com

If we constrain ourselves to think that time is always linear, that death is not
an ordinary part of life, that natural and moral evil can be equated, that God's
plans and methods are always transparent, that science will always have the
answers, that the Bible is merely a collection of propositions, that the
revelation of God is confined only to certain aspects of creation, and that we can
derive the origin of evil then evidences of pre-Edenic events might give us cause
to worry.

Our God is an awesome God. It appears from what we calculate and the evidence we
dig up that some sort of evolutionary activity is, at least, part of the glory of
God. We tend to think that our minds are immune from evolutionary progression,
even though now we see only through a glass darkly. How could we ever know what
consciousness was like back then? Sometimes we even think that God plays tricks
not realising for a moment where that puts him. It's interesting that we work so
hard to have less faith.

Here is an old old-earth scientist believing that there is one God, the Father
almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible, etc.
If there was death and extinction before the Fall, then, of course, there was.
Trouble is, we don't even know what happened exactly in Eden. We don't even know
what kind of apple it was, not to mention the fig tree. What we do know is that
God first loved us and that what he is and whether he is, are the same viz., I AM.
It could be that our theory of time has only just begun!